Why Dealer Education Matters to Growers | by Kelly Schultze

From the equipment they purchase to time spent in the field, growers put many resources into their operations. A grower’s investment involves much more than money. Growers have every right to expect trustworthy, skilled and knowledgeable salespeople and service technicians at their local Valley_® dealership.

At Valley University, we strive to make sure this expectation is not only met but exceeded. By providing our dealerships with the most accurate and up-to-date information on our products, we ensure that they are ready to answer any questions a grower may have. It is our goal to give all dealership sales employees the knowledge and skills needed to determine the best irrigation solution for each grower’s specific needs.

The commitment of excellence Valley makes to its customers goes beyond the point of sale, just like our commitment to support all dealership roles. In addition to product information, we provide courses to train service technicians. When service personnel are more knowledgeable about and experienced with Valley equipment, they are more efficient and accurate at the job site.

To train our dealerships’ service techs, we use interactions and simulations within our online courses. Service technicians can practice product installations and troubleshooting before ever leaving their dealership. This increases their comfort with the machines, and gives our growers peace of mind that they have the best trained service techs working on their equipment.

The Valley U team is dedicated to making online learning accessible and beneficial to our dealerships. We already know we have the best mechanized irrigation products available, so it’s our job to focus on making sure we have the best dealerships in the world to support our growers.

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Kelly Schultze E-Learning Instructional Designer Kelly joined Valley Irrigation in early 2014 as an E-Learning Instructional Designer. When she isn’t at work, she is typically creating replica costumes and props from films, comics, and television shows. Kelly also enjoys learning languages and is conversational in French and Korean. She loves to travel, and has lived abroad while studying in South Africa and South Korea.

What It's Like to Work for Valmont Middle East | by Adrian Cliffe

Established in January 2001, Valmont_® Middle East (VME) has grown into a leader in safety, quality, delivery and cost. VME has matured from a Valmont Industries Inc. toddler into one of the key manufacturing plants for the Global Irrigation Division.

Pilot production began in March 2002, providing customers with cheap shipping and excellent financial trade services. VME significantly expanded the scope of its capabilities through the years, primarily focusing on efficient customer services and lean manufacturing. Its work has fostered deep and healthy relationships with key customers and dealers, helping them grow.

Ever true to its humble origins, the staff at VME bases its reputation on passion, integrity, continuous improvement and delivering results. This year, 11 of our 80 dedicated employees are celebrating 10 years of service with the company. All of them believe that VME is a great company to work for and continually strive to meet the wants and needs of our customers. 

We asked these dedicated employees for honest feedback on their experience with VME and gathered their answers into word clouds to share with you.

What makes Valmont so enjoyable to work for?

What’s the biggest change you've seen in VME since starting?

Tell me about the best events or moment you had as a Valmont employee.

Congratulations to our team of employees, who are listed below. We know they - and the entire VME team -  will continuously strive to reach its goals by doing business the Valmont Way. With employees who are keen on the Valmont Core Values, we are excited to grow from a good company into a great company.

From Left : Ricardo, Aslam, Khalid, Nestor, Prakash, Wenny, Reme, Cristy, Arnel

NAME	JOB TITLE	YEARS OF SERVICE
Chakkungal Prabhakaran Prakash	Finance Manager	14.4
Nestor Sorita Deloso	Production Supervisor	14.2
Ricardo Barroza Lizardo	Maintenance Incharge	14.1
Cristy Monteiro	Driver/Admin. Helper	13.5
Muhammad Aslam Konimmal	Hr Coordination	13.5
Wenny Cantoria Bartolay	Inventory Control Aministrator	13.3
Maemoun Sabet Alani	Tsm	13.0
Mirza Khalid	Service And Installation Supervisor	12.8
Tom D'cruz Norban D'cruz	Service Technician	11.6
Remegious Praveen Pinto	Warehouse Keeper	11.6
Arnel Marcelo Gutierrez	Senior Welder	11.0

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Training Time for Middle East Valley Dealers | by Adrian Cliffe

Recently, Valmont_® Middle East hosted its annual dealership sales and training meeting in Jebel Ali Dubai. Representatives from dealerships across the Middle East, including India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey, gathered for five days of in-depth training. 

Participants completed software training, honed their sales skills and learned about Valley_® Authorized Providers Senninger and Nelson. New products such as BaseStation3™, AgSense^®, AquaDock™ and Pump Connect^® were introduced and demonstrated.

The feedback we got from the dealerships was great, and they reported gaining great knowledge from the training.

With five days packed with detailed instruction, the group took time to enjoy a Dhow dinner cruise to relax a bit and enjoy Dubai.

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Training for Valley Dealers – an Insider’s Perspective | by Michelle Stolte

Over the last month, I have attended a couple different classes offered to Valley_® dealers by Valley Irrigation.

The first class I attended was Design School, where primarily new, but also some veteran dealer personnel attend to better learn how to design center pivots, corners and linears. In this class, not only did we physically design machines on the computer, but we also learned about limitations for different kinds of equipment, so we can be assured peak performance in the field. An extensive amount of time was spent on the importance of water application and the characteristics of many different sprinklers we offer. 

Service School students are learning
Valley  tower box wiring code and schematics.

The second class I attended a few weeks later was Service School. There were approximately 100 dealership personnel in attendance at this school, some of them here on their first day of work, others who have worked for the dealership for 30-plus years. It was the eighth class our service department offered this season. 

There was a strong emphasis on safety, and then, in the Basic Level (which I, of course, attended!), we focused on wiring and troubleshooting. I gained a much greater appreciation for the work that all of our service people do day in and day out. While I have determined that I probably won’t be our service department’s first service woman, I did learn a lot, have even more respect for electricity than I did before and am glad I attended the class.

Training our dealership personnel is extremely important to Valley, and these are just two examples of the different training classes we offer. We want to make sure that our dealers are the best in the country and the world, so we invest a lot of time and effort in the different education methods we offer them.

I want to thank all of those who led the schools that I recently attended – the programs were top-notch and extremely educational.

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Michelle Stolte Global Marketing Manager Michelle has been at Valley Irrigation for more than 10 years and is finally no longer a newbie! She has spent her entire time at Valley in the Marketing Department (international and domestic) and loves every minute of it. Michelle enjoys traveling and spending time with her husband. She also likes reading, swing dancing (although she isn't really that good...), and warm weather.